Teacher Cognition and its Impact on English Language Education in Bangladesh.

Abstract

Teacher cognition has emerged as an important concept in teachers’ professional thinking and practices. It encompasses teachers’ beliefs formed through prior learning experiences, educational experiences, knowledge, assumptions about learning and teaching, decisions, course planning and classroom practices (Borg, 2006). This thesis is based on a study which aimed at examining higher secondary level English language teachers’ beliefs about English language teaching and the extent to which these beliefs affect their classroom practices. The study also investigated differences, if any, between government and private college teachers. Research was carried out through an interpretivist paradigm using a mixed methods approach, i.e. both quantitative and qualitative. Data was collected from 50 teachers through a questionnaire survey; 40 class observations and 20 interviews of 10 teachers; and narrative reflections of 5 teachers, all based in 14 colleges in Dhaka city. The findings revealed a regular pattern of consistency between teachers’ beliefs and practices. Their beliefs were based on the underlying features of educational and personal experiences with a strong orientation towards examinations, the curriculum, the school setting and environment, and their sense of self-efficacy. There were no highly significant differences between the government and private college teachers. The thesis then formulates an argument for the need to develop teacher education programmes in order to engage with teachers’ in-built belief systems by incorporating reflective practices in the programme methodology. Only then it might be possible to draw out teachers’ ingrained beliefs, interact with them and use them as an anchor to develop a teaching philosophy on which subsequent links can be made with the content and applied knowledge provided in formal teacher development courses.